Vincent Luis gunning for Olympic Gold in Tokyo
Vincent Luis, the two-time and reigning World Triathlon Champion will start as one of the favourites to take Olympic gold in Tokyo. The French star’s hunger to win and stay No.1 remains unquenched and is gunning for Olympic gold in Tokyo in both the individual and mixed relay events.
With three months remaining until the Tokyo Games, Luis is a two-time world champion (2019, 2020), ranked world No.1 and winner of five World Triathlon Series and three Mixed Relay World Championships (2015, 2018, 2019). Vincent started his professional triathlon career in 2005 after shifting over from a very promising Junior swimming career and was crowned World Junior Series Triathlon Champion in 2008. Eleven long years later Vincent was crowned World Open Triathlon Champion and his form and dominance on the world stage have been evident since.
But there is one thing missing from his arsenal of monumental achievements, one of sports greatest prizes: an Olympic Games medal.
Vincent is already a double Olympian and Tokyo will be his third Games after London 2012 (11th) and Rio 2016 (7th). He took the lessons learnt from those races to bring his performance up to new levels and having the ability to close on a win when he gets within striking distance with his brutal finishing kick in the final discipline of the sport. This consistency and mind-set saw him steadily climb the WTS rankings year-on-year to eventually became World Champion, and also played a pivotal role in France winning the Mixed Relay world title to become a world champion twice over.
As an athlete that really does know how to execute under pressure, what makes the Tokyo Games different than his previous Olympian efforts. “I feel less pressure than before… I competed at the Games twice already and I realised that it’s a race like the other ones. We swim, we pedal and we run against the same guys,” the French athlete said in an interview with Tokyo 2020. This a sign that the Frenchman has been working on his mental race, adapting visualisation techniques and other mental strategies to prepare him for the Tokyo Olympics.
He also changed his training regime. Having trained in his homeland in the French city of Reime since 2013 he joined the Joel Filiol training group in the USA in 2018, to train with some of the best triathletes in the world and find ways to go beyond his limits by adapting a new mindset, a subject he talked about with the TriNation Podcast Team (see below)
Vincent Luis talks ‘Mindset’ and Coach/Athlete relationship with the TriNation Podcast Crew
Who does the Frenchman perceive as one of his biggest rivals for the Gold Medal in Tokyo? Surprisingly – or maybe not – it is Alistar Brownlee. Although Alistair has not been selected to race at Tokyo (yet!), Vincent thinks it is odds on the GB selectors will choose him if he stays fit and firing on all cylinders. The selection radar was echoing loud and clear when the Double Olympic Gold Medalist was within a whisker of beating the World Champion, Vincent Luis at the World Cup race in Valencia back in November.
Medal or not at Tokyo I think there is still one more Olympics left for Vincent Luis that he will find irresistible, that is Paris 2024. The temptation will be too great not to perform in front of the French Nation. At that point, I would not bet against seeing the next Double Olympic Gold Medalist.
